Tuesday, October 12, 2010

India has seen three vaccine disasters in 2010, resulting in four deaths after the measles vaccine and six deaths after the HPV vaccine, so is it any wonder that the citizens of India are wary of having the H1N1 vaccine? The Indian public is not alone in refusing the vaccine, as Finland and Sweden have suspended the H1N1 vaccine by Glaxo Smith Kline, Pandermix, linking it to the sudden rise in the numbers of cases of the sleep disorder, narcolepsy. Finland reported that they have seen a staggering 300 percent rise in the cases of this extremely rare disorder in children who have had the vaccine.

The Hindu reported that Poland has rejected the vaccine altogether stating, “Poland has become the only country to reject H1N1 vaccines, in a decision fraught with risk amid worldwide warnings of a spreading epidemic. The country rejected the vaccines over safety fears and distrust in the drug companies producing them—concerns international health experts reject as unfounded.”

We also find a vaccine boycott in Ukraine. According to the Associated Press report, Vaccine scare in Ukraine threatens health,“Hundreds of thousands of fearful Ukrainians have refused vaccines for diseases such as diphtheria, mumps, polio, hepatitis B, tuberculosis, whooping cough, and others this year, according to official estimates. Authorities have canceled a U.N.-backed measles and rubella vaccination campaign funded by U.S. philanthropist Ted Turner and will have to collect and incinerate nearly nine million unused doses in coming months.”

Associated Press doesn't miss a beat feigning their puzzlement over the Ukrainians' refusal to roll up their sleeves for Ted Turner's vaccines, pretending, as all the mass media does, that vaccines are the best and safest thing since mother's chicken soup. “The people of Ukraine though didn't wait for their government and elected officials to take action to protect them from these dangerous vaccines. They took action themselves by boycotting the globalists' agenda en-mass and forcing the destruction of whatever Ted Turner had filled those nine million injections with by simply not consuming what was placed in the trough by the globalists.There is a great lesson to be learned here: Boycotts work, and perhaps the only vote you have that really counts is how you choose to spend your money, who you pay your attention to, and who you place your trust in, be it food, water, medicine, education, or the news.”

It is a paradox that the so called “underdeveloped” countries are the ones with the greatest wealth of natural resources, and yet the poorest in terms of consumer goods and services presently provided by and for the citizens. And in explaining this, some neo-economists want it to sound as if there is something God-given about this situation like in the Biblical literally context that “the poor are with us always”.

Certain “lost” economists have even gone to the extent of invoking the Bible: “For unto everyone that hath shall be given and he shall have abundance; but from him that shall be taken away even that which he hath” (St. Mathew XXV: 29). And if we can ask: But why should that one “hath” be taken away from Africa, always?

Nevertheless, the profound reasons for the economic backwardness of any given African nation, Tanzania inclusive, lie in the relationship between our countries and certain developed countries, and in recognizing that it is a relationship of exploitation and plunder.

One such means by which a nation exploits another is through trade. It is generally accepted that, when the terms of trade are set by one country or economic community in a manner entirely advantageous to itself, then the trade is detrimental to the trading partner.

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Indeed, foreign investment is the cause and not the solution to our economic backwardness. It is the paradox of our underdevelopment in that under crushing tears for want of life, survival and better life, we are made to produce without reaping. What is being produced is reaped and consumed by the “affluent”.

The other factor responsible for our underdevelopment is the restrictions placed upon our capacity to make the maximum use of our economic potential, which is what development is all about. In a way, our economies are integrated into the very structure of developed economies, and which ensures that our poor countries are dependent on big capitalist countries.

More particularly, the backwardness of underdeveloped countries can never be adequately tackled without reference to neo-colonialist and neo-imperialist repercussions.

The main purpose of this type of colonialism is the expropriation of profits, produced by our labour, out of our resources, to the so-called “mother country”.

India will soon be the first country in the world "to enact a food security entitlement act under which every family below the poverty line will get 35 kg of grain", says M S Swaminathan who is in Canada to receive an honorary doctorate from the University of Alberta.

One of the pioneers of the Green Revolution in India, Swaminathan said India cannot depend on volatile global markets to ensure its food security and it will have to ramp up its own output.

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Since the Indian farming sector is the largest private enterprise in the world employing about 60 percent of its population, he said he was happy that the government was paying huge attention to this sector through legislation and high-end technology.

"In fact, India is soon becoming the first country in the world to enact a food security entitlement act under which every family below the poverty line will get 35 kg of grain. Thus, 45 percent of Indians will get wheat at Rs.2 per kg and rice Rs.3 per kg," said Swaminathan, who is helping formulate the bill to be introduced in the next parliamentary session.

Described as "the father of economic ecology" by the UN Environment Programme, Swaminathan said: "India cannot depend on the global market to feed our 1.2 billion people. This year, Russia banned export of wheat for its needs. So what do we do? India has no option but to depend on its home-grown food."

From Wikipedia:The Feederz were formed in 1977 by Frank Discussion and Clear Bob (Dan Clark). Art Nouveau (John Vivier) later joining the group as their drummer. Before performing publicly, the Feederz issued a press release which the local media mistook as a terrorist communique. At their first show, Frank Discussion caused a panic by firing blanks from an AR-15 assault rifle into the audience. In 1980, the band released their first recording, a 4-song EP Jesus.In 1982, Frank Discussion wrote "Bored With School", a diatribe against school and work posing as an announcement from the Arizona Department of Education, and distributed five thousand copies to local high schools. He fled Arizona to escape arrest for this incident and settled in San Francisco.In 1984, Discussion reformed the Feederz with Mark Roderick and D.H. Peligro, with whom he recorded Ever Feel Like Killing Your Boss?. In Situationist style, the album sleeve was covered in sandpaper. In 1986, Teachers In Space was released with Jayed Scotti replacing Peligro on drums. Drummer Jayed Scotti was art partners with Winston Smith and created album art for bands such as the Dead Kennedys, MDC, and Crucifucks. The cover of Teachers in Space featured a photo of the Challenger disaster.

Later in the decade, Discussion again disbanded the Feederz but by then their orbit of influence had expanded, for among their many fans was Kurt Cobain. A fan's post to the Nirvana newsgroup, alt.music.nirvana, revealed Cobain took a bumper sticker from the Feederz Teachers In Space LP and then proudly stuck it on his all-black Fender Stratocaster, made famous at the 1991 Reading Festival (see Reading and Leeds Festivals) in England, where Nirvana performed with Sonic Youth. The sticker read, "Vandalism: As beautiful as a rock in a cop's face", and in small type underneath were these words: "Courtesy of the Feederz: Office of Anti-Public Relations". (The bumper sticker message would become the title of their comeback release more than a decade later). Cobain's use of this guitar in the "Year Punk Broke" video later that year indirectly lent even more exposure to the Feederz (until Cobain smashed it into pieces at a Paris show the following Spring).

The Feederz reformed in 2002 and released Vandalism: Beautiful as a Rock in a Cop's Face. This lineup included Ben Wah on drums and Denmark Vesey playing bass, both from Seattle. They toured throughout 2003.

Rumors persist that Frank Discussion now spends much of his time in Southern Mexico, moving among the EZLN (Zapatistas) and the Oaxacan based APPO who are in open revolt against the Mexican government. He has been expanding on the discipline of antistasiology (the study of resistance), an area of study he helped develop in the early 2000s. Mr. Discussion is also thought to be working on a movie entitled "Amor y Saqueo" (Love and Looting) which he describes as a "charming tale of a young girl who finds happiness through wholesale destruction, theft, sabotage and, of course, looting." It is unknown whether the film will be shot in the United States, Mexico or both.

To read The Kreutzer Sonata after one has read the diaries of both Sophia and Leo Tolstoy is to realize two things simultaneously: one, the story line (except for the murder) is very nearly a transcript of daily life inside the Tolstoy marriage; two, the marriage itself is something that Dostoevsky more easily than Tolstoy might have written. In Tolstoy's writing we have characters who, at once in thrall to both inner limitation and the force of circumstance, are placed on a landscape of world-and-self that steadily widens and deepens. In Dostoevsky we have these same characters living so completely inside their own heads that the world narrows down to the claustrophobic and the surreal. The Tolstoys, in the flesh, could not live out the “Tolstoy” within themselves. Equipped with all the external privilege necessary to live an open, expansive life, they were nonetheless driven to live as though Dostoevsky was making them up. The “happily ever after” of marriage had done them in.

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The Tolstoys spent their lives warring with one another because simply to walk away from the ancient dream of two-shall-be-as-one was, for them, psychologically prohibitive. The association between spiritual significance and emotional fulfillment invited a metaphoric devotion that neither could resist. In sacred desire was to be found the majesty of something that lovers were, categorically, pledged to redeem: man's forfeited nobility. To feel transformed by romantic passion was to see with radiant clarity the meaning of humanity as it could and should be. Indeed, the worship of love, realized or denied, aroused in both Sonya and Tolstoy the sense of paradise gained or lost that haunted every nineteenth-century romantic.

Millions of marriages, from time immemorial, have made their peace with the discrepancy between what should have been and what actually was, but for the Tolstoys such a truce proved viscerally impossible. The sense of loss that the discrepancy induced was, quite simply, unbearable. It is the “unbearable” that sets them apart. For them, it was necessary not only never to accept things as they were, but to remain relentless in one's refusal to accept things as they were. To the last, one must go on shaking one's fist at the heavens, crying aloud that the price of compromise is exorbitant.

That refusal is timeless and mythic; it is emblematic of a millennial yearning to achieve wholeness through the transformative ideal. If we give ourselves heart and soul to Love with a capital L, God with a capital G, Revolution with a capital R, perhaps we can be persuaded that what we fear most—our own incoherence—is not an immutable truth.

In the end the mixed nature of humanity itself proves the source of the great existential drama. To be mean and generous, depraved and decent, loving and murderous, not by turns but all at once—that, it seems, is the true burden of our existence. It is this humiliation that makes us rage at the heavens, this humiliation that has ever demanded of us some over-arching myth of redemption that will atone for the despair of our own self-divisions.

... What is “QE”? The first round of “quantitative easing” was a program announced by Ben Bernanke last March in response to the financial crisis, ending in March of this year. In what will soon be known as “QE1”(i.e. once QE2 is announced), Bernanke printed over a trillion dollars out of thin air, then used that money to buy, among other things, mortgage-backed securities (MBS) and Treasury Bonds. In other words, the government was printing money to a) lend to itself and b) prop up the housing market, with Wall Street stepping in to take a big cut.

That was QE1. There has long been speculation that another trillion-plus money-printing program called QE2 is coming, but only recently have there been concrete hints from the Fed along those lines. Among other things, New York Fed Vice President Brian Sack just this week squeaked out a comment about how, "In terms of the benefits, balance-sheet expansion appears to push financial conditions in the right direction.” Translating into English, “balance-sheet expansion” means the Fed adding to its balance sheet, i.e. printing money to buy stuff – i.e. QE2.

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But one thing we know for sure is that big banks and Wall Street speculators are real, immediate beneficiaries of the program, as they suddenly have trillions of printed dollars flowing through the financial system, with endless ways to profit on the new chips entering the casino.

And by an amazing coincidence, many of the biggest players in the financial services industry have a habit of buying up MBS or Treasuries just before these magical money-printing programs of the Fed send their respective values soaring. If you own a big fund, for instance, and you know that the Fed is about to buy a trillion dollars of mortgage-backed-securities through a new Quantitative Easing program, buying a buttload of MBS a few weeks early is a pretty easy way to make a risk-free fortune. One of the worst-kept secrets on Wall Street is that the big bankers and fund managers get signals about the Fed's intentions about things like QE well before they are announced to the rest of us losers in the public.

A hilarious example of this cozy insiderism popped up just a few weeks ago, when PIMCO bond fund chief Bill Gross let it slip on a live CNBC interview that he was getting inside info from the Fed. The interview is with former Goldman analyst and (now) CNBC anchor Erin Burnett, as well as my slimeball former colleague from the Moscow Times and (now) CNBC bobblehead Steve Liesman, who slobber typically over the bond king in the segment.

In a 12-minute clip entitled "Bible or Koran – which burns best?" Mr Stewart, who works for the Queensland University of Technology, holds up the two religious texts before ripping them apart and lighting the rolled up pages.

At one stage he inhales deeply from one of the roll-ups before blowing out the smoke and commenting: "Holy".

The video, which has since been deleted, was posted on the video-sharing site over the weekend, coinciding with the ninth anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

All major political parties have nominated candidates with pending criminal cases in the first phase of Bihar polls. Of them, BJP has 67% such candidates, while LJP has 63%, JD(U) has 46%, Congress has 43%, RJD has 39%, and BSP has 38% candidates with criminal cases against them.

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There are 154 candidates out of 446 (35%) who have pending criminal cases against them as per their self-attested declaration. Out of these 97 (22%) candidates have serious cases, including murder, attempt to murder, kidnap, extortion, causing hurt with dangerous weapons and dacoity, against them. Three candidates (one from BJP and two independents) have declared that they have pending cases related to rape, the NEW survey said.

NEW DELHI: Indian Occupied part of Jammu and Kashmir and India's occupied Chinese state Arunachal Pradesh have been finally listed as "independent entities" and not being part of India by the United Nations as it has finally stated that this was its approach towards "disputed" areas.

The categorisation came as a shock to the Indian government here at New Delhi becuase the UN has, in the past, been only treating Indian occupied area of Jammu and Kashmir as a dispute between India and Pakistan while viewing Arunachal Pradesh as a part of India. However, in its latest report, FAO has shown Indian occupied Jammu and Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh( a disputed territory between India and China) as separate countries along with India. The Indian states figure in country grouping for East Asia. The names are there in annexure five of the 2010 FAO report to assess greenhouse gas emissions from the dairy sector.

When contacted, FAO representative in India Gavin Wall said the country grouping is based on FAO's Global Administrative Unit Layers (GAUL), which aims at compiling and disseminating information on administrative units for all countries in the world and it complies with the UNCS international boundaries map. Wall said because the GAUL is developed at the global level, controversial boundaries cannot be ignored. "The selected approach is to treat disputed areas as independent entities not dependent from countries.

"In this way the GAUL preserves national integrity for all disputed countries. Areas of then classified from a purely geographic point of view," he said. Arunachal Pradesh has been spelt as 'Arunashal' Pradesh in the list which also shows Aksai Chin as a separate country. China maintains that Aksai Chin is its integral part while India says it is part of the state of Jammu and Kashmir.

Although rural communities have successfully lobbied for — and built — prisons for years, not many studies have been done on their economic impact. Some studies indicate slight economic gains for some prison towns, according to a Congressional Research Service report in April. Others that have become prison anchors might have not grown as fast as those without prisons.

Florence, Colo., where a federal prison complex went up in 1994, was once a major oil producer and gold-smelting center and now has some new businesses. New federal prisons have recently started hiring in West Virginia, which has seen a decline in coal jobs, and in an impoverished farming community in California. Others are being built in Mississippi and Alabama.

The population of Berlin, once above 22,000 during the 1920s when the paper industry was at its peak, is down to under 10,000 as mills shut down and people leave in search of new opportunities, including many of Secinore's peers. The population is aging; the median age in the county is 44.

For some, like Secinore, there is hope the prison could take away some of the sting, providing jobs and business opportunities. It's expected to employ about 330 workers, with 60 percent — about 200 — coming from New Hampshire; the rest would be brought in from other federal prisons.

Others aren't as hopeful. Back in 2002, Berlin residents voted in favor of a proposal to bring in a federal prison. Today, strict requirements for the jobs, among them that employees be hired before age 37, have diminished some of the excitement.

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Roots

Revelation 13

And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy...

...And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?...

Mark 13

And when ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars, be ye not troubled: for such things must needs be; but the end shall not be yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these are the beginnings of sorrows.